About

THE ARTIST

Sharifah Bahiyah Jamalullail

Studio Seni is a creative lifestyle brand founded by Sharifah Bahiyah Jamalullail. Studio Seni’s designs are hand painted onto canvases by the founder herself and transcribed onto a wide array of products from stationery, fashion items and dining ware, which are all made in Malaysia.

Studio Seni, which is a literal translation of “Art Studio”, merges art and lifestyle with designs that are bold, bright and full of unexpected color combinations depicting nature – beautiful, timeless designs that are both enticing and spell-binding.

Believing that life should be celebrated, she uses instinct and emotion to let her palette knives and paintbrushes guide her process, resulting in flowers that burst out from large texturized canvases through expressive, energetic strokes which pulses with vibrant colours in a lively and vivacious rhythm.

Symbolising human enlightenment of love and joy, flowers are a dominant theme in her collection. Compositions of delicate peonies, exquisite multi-chambered roses and many petalled hydrangeas will reach out and touch you and encourage you to appreciate flowers on a whole new level.

The Inspiration

Flowers have always been an important part of Sharifah Bahiyah’s life. They were a regular presence throughout her childhood with her late mother often drawing attention to them, pointing out different blooms wherever they happened to be.

Inspired by other talented members of her family who also painted, both her late grandmothers and aunt hand painted beautiful blooms on delicate porcelain.

“On top of bringing joy, painting flowers is also a way to stay connected to my childhood and my loved ones, whilst at the same time keeping their memories alive,” says Sharifah Bahiyah.

She hopes her paintings will trigger happiness and inspire feelings of positivity in people.

Palette knife painting

A palette knife painter uses a flat blade tool to paint. The history of palette knife painting goes back to early impressionist days, where artists would mix paint with a palette knife, but then apply paint with a brush. As poorer artist’s brushes wore out and couldn’t afford to replace them, some began to paint directly with the palette knife.

Palette knife paintings have very thick texture, and the knife strokes leave very distinctive markings in the surface of the painting. The thickness is known as ‘impasto’, which means paint applied so thickly that you can see ridges or globs of paint sticking out from the surface.

“The use of a lot of texture in my work is to evoke movement, which then evokes emotion.

As an impressionist, I paint an impression or loose interpretation of the shapes and values that are seen in nature. I find something very freeing about it; it allows me to be me perfectly yet imperfectly at the same time,” explains Sharifah Bahiyah.